Board favors upping membership to seven

The board Monday agreed on a 5-1 vote to have the question placed on this year's ballot. Darrell “Boxer” Wagner voted against the motion.

The main reasoning behind the action stems from the board's history of being split on its votes. The most recent occurrence popped up during last month's meeting on the decision of re-enrolling in the Quality Compensation for Teachers, or Q-Comp, program. Moving to an odd-numbered board would alleviate a split vote on issues as well as a headache among some board members.

“We need an odd number on the board,” board Chairman Gordy Dault told The Journal in May after it was briefly split on who to hire as the district's superintendent. “Diversity on a school board is a good thing, but when you end up on different sides of an issue, an odd number can easily resolve it.”

During Monday's meeting, Dault said he looked into the possibility of going down to a five-member board, but reported legislation would likely stand as a roadblock to that action.

“Basically, we can't go down,” he said. “It's almost impossible to get legislation.”

Board member Michelle Hebner said an odd-numbered board would be favorable moving forward.

“Not to say we'll always be split in the future...but I think it's important to have that one deciding vote,” she said.

Wagner disagreed.

“Right now, if the vote is split, the vote either fails or passes,” he said. “I don't see where it'll do us any good. It's just wasting taxpayers' money.”

In other business Monday, the board rescinded a memorandum of understanding with the local teacher's union for participation in the Q-Comp program, and unanimously agreed to bring it back for the upcoming school year.

The program pays teachers an additional stipend of $3,000 on top of their contract pay if they meet all five benchmarks determined by the program.

Last month, Dault expressed concern about results produced by the program. Monday, however, he said after researching the program and talking to school officials around the state, he saw mathematics test scores for students in grades 4,5,6 and 8 had improved.

“I disagree with how Q-Comp is set up by the state,” he said. “But all the teacher involvement is very-well done in portfolios I've looked at.”

Superintendent Nordy Nelson explained to board members the program runs on about a $100,000 levy from the district and receives about $200,000 in state aid.

“If you did not have that in place, that $300,000 has to be taken from the present school budget,” he said. “It's nothing coming in, but it's going out of your budget. That's where I have to stand on it's approval.”

District principals Tim Everson and Melissa Tate said the program covers state-mandated teacher evaluations, and both expressed their support of Q-Comp. 

Meanwhile, the board also:

• Approved a contract reassignment of Beth Shermoen as the .7 FTE assistant principal and .3 FTE athletic director.
• Approved the elimination of one bus route beginning during the 2014-2015 school year for a savings of about $33,000.
• Approved the elimination of the West End Elementary secretarial position.
• Approved the elimination of the Community Education secretarial position.
• Approved a new, combined Community Education/Falls Elementary secretarial position effective Aug. 18.
• Approved the placement of Barb Johnson on an unrequested leave of absence as a Local 510 secretary effective Aug. 15 with recall rights to the extent of .42 FTE.
• Approved the hire as Michael Paulson as a secondary social studies teacher.
• Approved the hire of Erin Morin as a secondary English teacher.
• Approved the hire of Alex Ringhofer as a .55 FTE secondary math teacher.
• Approved the hire or Marva Fairchild as a .82 FTE secondary Family and Consumer Science teacher.
• Approved the hire of Jim Jelinski as a motivational speaker/educational consultant for seven anti-bullying presentations for the fall of 2014.
• Accepted the resignation of Larry Pullar as custodian due to retirement.